CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina — Earlier than Democrats have been making an attempt desperately to woo again younger males, working commercials aimed toward “white dudes” and sending surrogates to inform fraternity brothers that it’s okay to vote for a lady, there was Flagstock.
It was Labor Day weekend, and tons of of younger folks — most of them white males — had come collectively close to the College of North Carolina for a music competition to honor a bunch of frat brothers. These self-described Bros obtained caught up in a campus protest in April in opposition to U.S. coverage towards Gaza. When the protesters tried to exchange the American flag with a Palestinian emblem, the scholars from a number of fraternities shaped a protecting ring round Previous Glory.
When pictures of those clean-cut younger males of their khaki shorts holding up the flag hit Twitter, a second was born in America’s right-of-center consciousness. Whether or not intentional or not, that patriotic tableau related to lots of the themes animating former President Donald Trump’s candidacy and the gender hole that’s defining our citizens.
Republican activists have been fast to pounce, they usually — together with sympathetic nation music stars — conceived of a form of Woodstock-of-the-right to honor the brothers and promote their values on this essential swing state.
“Woodstock was a cultural assertion of the occasions. And I believe Flagstock is a cultural assertion of our occasions,” declared John Wealthy, whose band, Large & Wealthy, led the present.
Now, as Vice President Kamala Harris fights to win again the young-male cohort that helped propel President Joe Biden to victory over Trump in 2020, Democrats are frantically questioning what precipitated an erosion of help in polls in comparison with 4 years in the past.
It’s by no means a simple query, for the reason that make-up of the youngest voting bloc modifications with virtually each election. However the reply — at the very least as considered via the prism of Flagstock — appears rooted within the need of younger males for some kind of secure area from the challenges and criticisms, actual or perceived, that bubble up from a tradition within the midst of a gender revolution.
To all appearances, Flagstock was an occasion for males, by males, to honor males — or, at the very least, a sure form of man: The VIP tent included 25 beer pong tables, catered Hooters wings and a pair of ice luges.
A lot of America — particularly within the liberal cultural enclaves of the Northeast and West Coast — consider Bros because the institution: the fellows barking orders to “purchase” or “promote” from their places of work whereas they apply placing. However Flagstock didn’t really feel like an occasion thrown by the Masters of the Universe a lot as a bunch hug for a maligned neighborhood. It was Exhibit A within the conversion of younger males from symbols of privilege to what seems to be like a distressed and put-upon minority group.
John Ondrasik, higher often known as 5 for Combating, opened the present and delivered a line extra more likely to be directed to folks struck by a deadly sickness than a part of a fraternity at an elite college: “You aren’t alone on this. Each particular person on this stage has your again. Tens of hundreds of thousands of People have your again.”
After the present, he defined his view that there’s a “paralysis of conscience throughout the arts” that pushes younger folks in direction of “woke dogma” and “Hamas propaganda.” Music that validates America is now “counter-cultural.”
Flagstock, he believes, is the brand new counterculture.
For his half, Wealthy trolled the gang with the fake disdain they may affiliate with liberal pundits: “You guys all reside in your mama’s basements, and also you’re taking part in video video games all day, proper?”
He answered the query for them shortly after: “No. You’re going to school, and also you wish to construct a household and a enterprise and chase the American dream.”
Each his and Ondrasik’s exhortations from the stage had clear ’60s overtones: They have been telling as we speak’s Bros to battle the facility. And to many in his viewers, that energy appeared to look much more Taylor Swift and Kamala Harris than just a few Chads shot-gunning beers.
Democrats are relying on a record-setting gender hole to ship them the presidency, however so are the Republicans. Trump’s issues with ladies are broadly identified, however Harris’ issues with males have solely not too long ago been taking middle stage within the marketing campaign.
“We’re targeted on focusing on low propensity voters,” a senior Trump adviser, who was granted anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to debate the matter instructed me a month in the past. “We all know there are numerous, many low propensity male voters on the market in battle floor states who completely help Trump however don’t vote.”
Nowhere is the cut up between women and men extra drastic than with the youngest group of voters, ages 18-29, the place an August New York Occasions/Siena ballot confirmed a 51-point gender hole in swing states. It added to a rising record of polls displaying ladies breaking for Harris and males wanting in direction of Trump.
Harris and her staff have taken some steps to deal with the issue: She repeatedly hails her vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, as a army veteran and soccer coach. Earlier this month she submitted herself to an hourlong interview with radio’s alpha male, Howard Stern. The surface group White Dudes for Harris stated the quiet half out loud once they dedicated $10 million to an advert marketing campaign boosting her candidacy with an advert that begins with the road, “Hey White Dudes, I believe we’re all fairly uninterested in listening to about how a lot we suck each time we go browsing and the way we’re the issue.”
That remark — groundbreaking in its personal method — appeared to acknowledge that many Democrats and the faculties, companies and cultural establishments that share their worldview have burdened the significance of inclusion in a method that alienates many younger males.
These males, in flip, blame the Democrats and their allies for labeling their conduct as “poisonous” and structuring curricula, workplace environments and alternatives for development to favor ladies.
“The sensation I get from younger males is, they’re simply over it. They’re simply over the lecturing, being instructed their points don’t depend as a lot,” Richard Reeves, a senior fellow at Brookings and the president of the American Institute for Boys and Males, instructed me. In latest weeks, Reeves has emerged as one thing of a guru on the erosion of younger male help for Democrats.
Culturally, “We’ve changed the concept of ‘unique sin’ with the post-modern concept of poisonous masculinity,” stated Reeves.
Some may even see justice on this after centuries of male domination. However whereas politics is usually about justice, it’s additionally about emotions, and being heard, and sending messages. And that leads some males, inevitably, to Trump — the candidate who has made a profession of portraying an exaggerated model of an alpha male: the person who refuses to curb his conduct to fulfill his critics.
As Alex Bruesewitz, one in every of Trump’s advisers targeted on male outreach, stated, amidst this state of affairs, the typical man “realizes there isn’t a different selection however to vote for Trump.”
By all appearances, Trump is cleverly maneuvering to bottle their frustrations right into a motion.
That’s why his allies have been so fast to take discover of the UNC brothers who defended the flag.
It began with a gallows-humor web publish from GOP operative John Noonan.
“UNC Frat Bros Defended Their Flag. Throw ’em a Rager” learn the topic line on a GoFundMe posted by Noonan. It went viral. Noonan’s missive shortly raised greater than a half million {dollars}. It additionally caught the eye of some extra highly effective brokers.
First amongst them was Wealthy, who tweeted that he and his band would play the get together totally free.
And subsequent, Trump’s marketing campaign approached a number of the Bros current on that April day to talk on the Republican Nationwide Conference. They marched into Milwaukee carrying Trump’s trademark white shirt and pink tie and supplied a innocent tribute to the flag.
Noonan professed to be baffled.
“I made the GoFundMe to purchase these guys just a few kegs and make my mates chuckle,” he recalled, noting that his pitch led to the emergence of a 16,000-donor “Broletariat” that tapped into one thing a lot greater.
The query of what that factor is has profound implications.
Whereas Flagstock might have exhibited a number of the the reason why youthful males are veering towards Trump, it additionally featured a number of the warning flags that may give hope to Democrats.
Noonan and his co-hosts have been emphatic that patriotism was bipartisan and so was the flag, however some within the viewers appeared to bristle on the notion that the UNC brothers’ selfless motion was being co-opted for political acquire.
“I am not proud of the truth that it is grow to be a polarizing political factor,” sophomore and Zeta Beta Tau president Jason Calderon, who had helped defend the flag in April, stated whereas on the competition.
One other group of brothers from the Alpha Epsilon Pi — a fraternity on the middle of the efforts to guard the flag — went farther and refused to attend Flagstock due to its political overtones, in accordance with The New York Occasions’ Eduardo Medina.
There have been no ladies taking part in the present, and only a few within the crowd. And never each man appeared snug with that.
“We go the place the curiosity is,” Noonan stated, shrugging off the absence of girls on stage as he burdened that the all-male line-up was taking part in totally free.
As for the dearth of feminine followers on the grounds, Noonan confirmed the rumors on campus — that 4 or 5 sororities had boycotted the occasion over security and politics.
However on the identical time, many self-professed Bros appeared unbothered by the political overtones and genuinely receptive to Trump. In interviews, some stated they regard the Biden period of politics as a time the place Democrats struggled to profess their love for nation with out an asterisk connected.
Biden’s personal inaugural deal with cited “systemic racism,” “white supremacy” and his trademark battle to “restore the soul” of America. The chorus of “… however we now have a lot work left to do” was the coda of anxious Democrats daring to reward the nation.
Trump, against this, has catered to right-leaning influencers with legions of younger male followers. He’s made marketing campaign stops with Nelk’s Kyle Forgeard, and carried out media hits with comic podcasters Theo Vaughn and Andrew Schulz, online game streamer Adin Ross, and know-how investor David Sacks’ All In podcast. His RNC was headlined by the likes of UFC founder Dana White, Child Rock and Hulk Hogan. Organize these faces on a Pinterest board and right here’s what you’ll see: a coalition of multigenerational Bro-dom, older variations of the younger males streaming into the Flagstock gates.
On the live performance, most answered “no” when requested if the phrase “Bro” was a slur. In actual fact, they didn’t take offense to being labeled that method in any respect — in most situations, they professed to be happy with their Zyn and White Claw identification.
“I believe it is simply a big demographic today,” Preston Hill, the MAGA-hat-wearing vice chairman of UNC’s faculty Republicans answered.
“I believe for them, it’s form of just like the satisfaction of it,” UNC senior Suhailah Boukarfi, who didn’t attend the live performance, instructed me.
It wasn’t the GOP coverage agenda that excited this crowd. At Flagstock, every act tried out its set of pet points on the Bros to middling outcomes.
5 for Combating did his greatest to impress the gang round “antisemitism” and “mobs working amok” on campus. Wealthy made an enchantment to “the 2 decisions developing right here quickly: communism versus freedom.” And Aaron Lewis, of the 2000s alt-metal band Staind, carried out his nation tune “Made in China” to make a broader geopolitical level.
For probably the most half, nobody actually cared. Mentions of coverage have been extra more likely to trigger Bros of their trucker’s hats and classic T-shirts to show their eyes in direction of the beer tent as a substitute of producing the “Amen!” name and response of a Bernie Sanders rally.
“Fuck Biden,” Lewis growled in the midst of his set. It hit exhausting — maybe a nod to Wealthy’s concept that Flagstock was protest music.
However what actually hit the strongest have been Wealthy’s phrases within the final set. They appealed to the sense of connection that existed from Bro-to-Bro — in fact, the muse of any subgroup: “Doesn’t it really feel nice to be right here tonight, amongst so many fellow patriots?” the nation singer requested the gang.
The “U-S-A” chants began instantly after. Sure, they appeared to agree. It was good to be in a secure place, with like-minded folks.
